You Are The Hole in My Head
by upupa-epops
Summary: Every morning Elena sits in front of her vanity and focuses solely on brushing her hair. 4x10 spoilers.


_A/N: Written after 4x10. There is sire bond and sex. Yes, at the same time. Some stuff could be read as allusions to self-harm. Written for Porn Battle XIV. Prompts: head, hallway, hands, eyes, gaze, top_

* * *

**You Are The Hole in My Head**

Every morning Elena sits in front of her vanity and focuses solely on brushing her hair.

It's not that easy a task, really – her hair can get awfully tangled on a bad day, so she spends long minutes fighting the wavy mess before she can get it straight again. She always feels like every stroke of the brush goes right through her head, removing all the things that should be removed, unwanted thoughts and bad dreams, things that aren't her and can't be her. By the time she gets her flat iron out, she can look in the mirror and recognize herself completely, all the thoughts that don't belong swept neatly under the rug.

Out of mind. Out of sight.

* * *

When she comes home after the memorial for Carol Lockwood, she brushes her hair furiously. It's not morning, so technically she should wait, but she lives alone now, so no one will ever know, and anyway, there are knots in her hair, knots she has to get rid of as soon as possible.

She ends up taking a shower, because she can't comb Rebekah, Stefan and Caroline out of her head. She is sure water will help. Water, or scissors, or something; after all, she's Elena Gilbert, and she always finds a way to stop feeling things she shouldn't be feeling. Scissors would actually be better, but everyone would know if she used them, so instead Elena settles for what she can have: she closes her eyes and scrubs; scrubs until there's blood, and then scrubs some more.

Walls in her head slowly come back to their places, and all is right in the world. Rebekah's questions go down the drain like they never happened, raw fear in Elena's mind replaced by raw skin on her head (she liked it better when it healed less quickly).

Her hairbrush and flat iron are easier to manage after she gets out of the bathroom. She efficiently straightens Rebekah's grin and the look on Stefan's face out of her mind, but she'd have to burn her hair to get rid of everything, so she simply ignores whatever's left.

(Recently she's been getting worse and worse at ignoring.)

After only three hours or so she's ready to sit on her porch, her hair, finally straight and neat, surrounding her head like an armor. Calm and relaxed, she wraps herself in a blanket for good measure and takes a deep breath. Bad things happen everywhere, but so far nothing terrible has happened on her own porch (in the house, perhaps, but never on the porch), so it's okay to breathe here.

Nothing makes her call Damon, and that's why she does it.

* * *

She comes to the lakehouse in the morning to find her brother covered in vampire blood.

"You were supposed to protect him," she yells at Damon as soon as she sees him. "You promised you'd protect him!"

"And I couldn't."

Something in his face makes her stop, not love and not tiredness, but something quite inexplicable. He asked her to come, and it counts for something, but after Jeremy told her what happened in that bar, Elena is so mad she isn't even sure if she wants to talk to Damon now.

"I was an idiot to think Klaus would leave us alone," he says before she can make up her mind. "But Klaus has a point. Jeremy needs to kill vampires, and those freshly turned are easiest prey."

It's enough to make her yell again, and soon they're both yelling, shouting out arguments they both hate. Elena can't believe how this is her life now, Jeremy's hand holding a stake in a firm grip and innocent people dead on a wooden floor, so she yells until she's out of breath, and then she storms out, slamming the door so hard she breaks it.

When she comes back home, she still feels like crying, so she grabs a hairbrush and sits in front of a mirror.

That's how Damon finds her, hands firmly holding a strand of hair and eyes focused on her own reflection. He doesn't say anything, just walks into the bathroom and comes back with a wet towel. Only when he comes closer does Elena notice that there's dried blood on her hands. She doesn't even know how it got there. It could've been when she hugged Jeremy, or maybe she just spilled some when she was eating, fingers too shaky to hold a bloodbag straight. Damon gently wipes something off her face, and then leaves the towel on a desk for her to clean her hands.

She ends up putting it on her face instead, cool cloth soothing her thoughts and her eyes. She hears a chair being moved, and then feels soft pressure, Damon's forehead against her arm. Damn she missed being touched.

"I have an idea," says Damon quietly, "and you're not gonna like it."

Elena lets out a sharp chuckle.

* * *

And here they are, back to square one, a filthy hallway in a shabby motel, Jeremy fast asleep in one of the rooms. They'll have to hit the road again in the morning, and then the next morning, again and again, as many mornings as it takes for Klaus to lose track of them. They come back to the old habit of not talking; sitting with their backs against opposite walls, legs meeting around the ankles.

"I don't want to take the cure," says Elena after what feels like hours of silence. She doesn't have to look at Damon to know he's watching her carefully.

Suddenly she feels the urge to tell him everything, anything that crosses her mind. Her head opens gently in places where, once upon a time, it was ripped apart, and her fingers automatically go to her hair to hold it wide open.

If she doesn't have any secrets, there will be no secrets for anyone to rip away from her.

"If I take it, I'll be under Klaus's thumb for the rest of my life," she tries carefully, testing words in her mouth with her tongue as if they were teeth. "I'm afraid that if I try to get it, I'll destroy my brother."

"What about the sire bond?"

Now, that's a tough one, one she never answered because she didn't think anyone would ask.

"I hate it," she says because it's true, and maybe she can figure out other truths if she goes from here. "I hate it and I want it gone."

Damon has the decency to not point out the contradictions in what she's saying, and she files them under "sort out later" (like pretty much everything in her life right now). She lets her hands drop to the floor again, because her head is now staying open on its own, and she dives into thoughts, closes her eyes to see them better.

"I was going to sleep with you in Denver," she says loudly and clearly. "I was going to do this to burn all the bridges."

Damon laughs in the dark.

"I figured that much," he says lightly. She wants to ask if he didn't mind, but then she looks at his face and laughs herself.

* * *

She sneaks into his bed that night, takes off her clothes and silently slides under the covers before he even wakes.

Damon opens his eyes when she kisses his neck. He automatically leans into her touch before reality sets in and he sits up rapidly, pupils blown and hands shaking.

"Elena, don't..." he starts, but she puts a finger on his lips.

"I need to do it, once. I just need to do it."

He nods like he understands, presses a feather-light kiss to her lips before he lies back down. This is a dumb idea and they both know it; they can't keep doing this, or doubts would eat them alive. But she needs one selfish night, she wants it, she deserves it, and she knows Damon will give it to her.

She leans over him for a kiss, her hair she hasn't had time to straighten for days surrounding his face like a halo. This doesn't solve anything, her teeth on his lower lip or his hips arching under her, but she didn't come here for solutions. She takes Damon's hand and puts it on her head, lets his fingers slide through her hair, pull it away until he uncovers her whole.

Elena doesn't repeat her love confession, but she knows Damon's head is full of it anyway, so she just holds his gaze as she slides onto him. She needs him to see, to watch and stare and notice, because all the thoughts she can no longer ignore keep spilling out of her head, and a part of her wants him to catch them and keep them safe.

It's impossible, of course, spreading herself thin over someone, a silly mistake she will never make again, but she takes Damon's other hand anyway, places it on her hip so they can set a slow rhythm together. She's still talking, or maybe thinking, no difference, really, because Damon sits up to kiss her temple, his fingers holding on to her tangled hair, and she starts trembling around him, so much for slowness.

She'll ask him to go down on her before the night is over, and then maybe they can go another round just before dawn, but right now she needs him to hold her head against his shoulder until she stops crying.


End file.
